ISSN 0960-7870 BRITISH BRICK SOCIETY

INFORMATION 75

OCTOBER 1998

OFF]CEHS OF THE BRlTISB BRICK SOCIETY

Chairman

Honorary Secretary

Terence P Smith BA, MA. M.Litt

Michael Hammett ARIBA

6 Hart Hill DriveLUTONBedfordshireLU2 OAX

9 Bailey CloseHIGH WYCOtvffiEBuckinghamshireHP136QA(tel. 01494 520299)

Membership Secretary Keith Sanders(reeeives all direet subseriptions £7 p.a. *)

Editor of 'Information' David H Kennett BA MSc(reeeives articles and itemsJor 'InJormation')

HonoraryTreasurer Mrs Evelyn Hammersley(on~vJor malters eoneerning the annual ales, expenses ete.)

Hook FarmAshford RaadKingsnorthASHFORDKent TN23 3EA(tel. 01233638329)

7 Watery LaneSHIPSTON-ON-STOURWar-wickshire CV36 4BE(tel. 01608 664039)

68 Bromley Heath RoadDownendBristol BSI66IT

Publications Officerand Bibliographer

Enquiries Secretary(written enquiries only)

Mrs Ann Los

Dr Ronald ] Firman

"Peran"30 Plaxton Bridge,WoodmanseyBeverleyEast YorkshireHUl7 ORT

12 Elm AvenueBeestonNottinghamNG9 lBU

OFFICERS OFTHE BRlTISH ARCHAELOGICAL ASSOCIA TION : BRICK SECTION *

Chairman

Honorary Secretary

Terence P Smith BA, MA, M.Litt.

Michael Hammett ARlBA

Address as above

Address as above

* Members oJ the BM l1Iayjoin its Briek Seetion and, as such, will be eligible Jor affiliation to the BritishBriek Society at the redueed rate oJ £5 p.a., Jor SM Life Members the subseription is waived. They shouldinJorm the BM:BS Secretary oJtheir address and interests so that they ean be included in the MembershipList. Telephone l1lil1lbersare helpJul Jor eontaet purposes, but will not be included in the Membership List.

1

Contents

Editorial: Coal and Brick - a vanishing heritage

Bdck in Museums 2The Lancashire Mining Museum, Buile HilI, Salfordby David H. Kennett

Brickmaking Terms - a list of sourcesby Roger KenneIl

News from Members

Book Review: Brick in Essex from the Roman Conquest to the Reformation

Brick in Print

Meeting the Brick Challenge:

Williamson Cliff Brickworks

The Kilns at Williamson Cliff Brickworks

Aslackby Manor House, Lincolnshire

Brick Queries:

Bricks from Sewerage Sludgefrom A. Harper-Smith

Bricks with a Crown in the Frog - aresponseby A. Corder-Birch

Brick Pointingfrom Susan Roundtree

Beavertail-shaped roof tile from Belgiumfrom P. de Niel

Brick and its uses in the Twentieth Century - a proposed reviewby T.P. Smith and D.H. Kennett

2

4

7

10

11

13

15

16

19

21

21

22

22

24

Cover Illustration:Aslackby Manor House, Lincolnshire.The east wing is seventeenth-century and in English bond. It was the afternoon part of thesociety's Spring Meeting in 1998, courtesy of Alan Baxter.(photograph: Alan Baxter)

2

Editorial:eoal and Brick -.a vanishing landscape

One of the articles in this issue of BBS Infonnation reeords the briek exhibits in theLaneashire Mining Museum. As the text of the article makes clear, brieks have a closerelationship with eoal mining.

This relationship was first made clear in the pages of BBS Infonnation as long ago asissue 5, November 1974. One of the first loeal meetings of the naseent British Briek Societywas a symposium on 'Briekmaking in South Yorkshire' held at Doneaster Museum and ArtGallery on Saturday 19 Oetober 1974. The soeiety's then honourary seeret;lry, AnnePennington-George, a geologist by training, spoke on the geology of South Yorkshire andits effect on brickmaking. Her talk demonstrated the relationship between eoal measures aridbrick earths. This is apart of England where the brick industry is eomparatively late in itsintroduction. The first reeords of a brick industry date only to 1698 although there are someearly-seventeenth-century brick buildings in the vicinity. Even in the mid nineteenth centurystone was the customary building material of the south Yorkshire coalfields .. Given the close relationship between coal mines and brieks, both in their use in the mines

and manufacture by mining companies, it seems appropriate therefore to draw attention tothe large number of brick buildings of the 1930s put up at coal mines from Kent toNorthumberland which with the demise of the eoal industry are themselves being demolished.

Coal mining is a hazardous and dirty job. Many members will be familiar withphotographs of the miner in the tin bath at horne in front of the open coal fire with only acurtain for privacy. To alleviate problems of miners coming off shift tired, wet and hot fromwork and having to walk horne on a cold day, baths at the pitheads themselves began to beprovided from 1911. But only six were built in the next ten years.

After the Great War, the Miners' Welfare Committee appointed arehitects to designpithead baths. lohn Henry Forshaw (1895-1973) became their Chief Architect in 1926 andremained until 1939. Towards the end of his service he twice spoke to the Royal Institute ofBritish Architects about 'The Architectural Work of the Miners' Welfare Committee':. thetitle was the same on both occasions. Transcripts which include the discussions afterwardsappear Journal RJBAj 7 September 1935, pp. 1077-1090, and Journal RIBA, 7 March 1938,pp.421-438. He was not the only architect employed: others include 1.W. Dudding, F.G.Frizzell, G.C. Kemp, O.H. Parry, A.l. Saise, and W.A. Woodland.

Forshaw's best-known pithead baths are those at Treharris, Glamorgan, of 1932 wherea traditional elevation with a gabled roof was used. Better known are those with influencesfrom the style of Willem Martins Dudok of the Netherlands: asymmetric and austerely cubicin style. Architecturally. they share with Dudok's approach - notably in the Town Hall atHilversum (1928-31) - the device of letting the function of the individual units determinetheir size and preeise cubieal form; a tower is provided to draw these component elementstogether and to avoid the more sprawling effects at such juxtaposition of disparate units.Briek in a variety of the less common bonds was ideally suited to the concepts involved.

Bettshanger Colliery, Northboume, Kent, is where the best known of the pure eubic formof pithead baths was built in brick; it was opened in 1934 and designed by G.C. Kemp, whoalso designed baths in south Lancashire and Yorkshire West Riding.

In County Durharn and Northumberland, F.G. Frizzell is the architect of the few wh ichsurvived as recently"as 1980. The baths at Elemore, Co. Durharn, constructed in 1933, were.in red brick with v.äried bonding and prominent string courses; the water tower was stepptXIand vertically ineised. It was demolished in 1980. A variety of bonds including stack bonding

3

characterised the red brick of the baths at BI'ackhall, Co. Durharn, of 1939. In contrast thesole survivor in 1992 of the twelve built in Northumberland, that at Lynemouth Colliery wasi~ white brick. It had a great tower with a curved glass projection featuring a spiral staircase.

Thirty had been built at collieries in County Durharn and at least thirty-two in YorkshireWest Riding. Seven were built in Nottinghamshire, all except one designed by A.J. Saise.Others were constructed at collieries in Kent, Lancashire, Scotland and Staffordshire. In all361 schemes were completed 'before 1945, giving bathing facilities to a third of all coalminers.

There is little for which these buildings can be adapted. Often the location is againstthem, away from houses. They tended to lack a swimming pool which would encourage anew community use. They were built for a specific purpose: to get men clean after a day'swork. It is probably inevitable that with the demise in the 1990s of the coal industry, still inthe 1930s the largest industry in Britain, these buildings will have no future. But as examplesof tlie inventive use of brick they should be recorded. .

Colliery baths and other buildings associated with the coal industry are not the only lossof 1930s brick buildings which have occurred. Soon after the writer went to Salford, inJanuary 1994, he was asked to visit St Christopher's church, Withington, one of the suburbs'of south Manchester. Bernard Miller's design of 1934 was one of the more remarkablechurches of the decade. Nave and chancel were of equallength and separated by a high blockforming a square tower to the (liturgical) north and an apsidal baptistry with long thinwindows to the (liturgical) south. The building was aligned north-south with the altar at then011hern end. The church building lasted less than sixty years and when demolished wasstructurally' sound. It also cost £60,000 to demolish.

Such structural soundness is often true of large houses in Surrey, parts of Essex and northOxfordshire whose demolition is now being permitted by planning authorities on conditionthat another large house is built on the site. A case, it would seem, of the successful of onegeneration not wanting to purchase a perfectly viable house which is a legacy ofgrandfather's time.

I am indebted to Adrian Corder-Birch for notice of the Essex Book Awards for 1996/97which took place at Ingatestone Hall, Essex on 24 March 1998. First prize in the 'BestIndividually Published Book' was awarded to Brick in Essex from the Roman Conquest to theRefonnation by Pat Ryan.

The British Brick Society offers its hearty congratulations to Mrs Ryan on herachievement in producing the.book and in gaining the award. The book is available from MrsP. Ryan at 60 Maldon Road, Danbury, Chelmsford, Essex CM3 4QL.

The society has been active in the Spring and Summer of 1998. This issue of BBSInformation contains reports on the Spring Meeting in Lincolnshire and the February 1999issue will feature reports on the walk round Cambridge after the Annual General Meeting,theJuly Meeting in Essex and the Autumn Meeting in Dorset.

The editor has happy memories of the July Meeting. The bfick part. of the day beganwhen glancing up from The Manchester Guardian to spot two magnificent dragons glaringdown at the street from adjacent houses on Woodstock Road, Oxford. Doubtless, he willrenew his acquaintance with these en route to the Autumn Meeting in the Old Town ofPoole.DA VID H. KENNETIEditor. RES lnfonnarion,Shipston-on-Stour. 27 January 1998 and 2 August 1998

4

BRICK IN MUSEUMS 2

The Lancashire Mining Museum, BuHe Hill, Salford

David H. Kennert

Many museums are housed ~n buildings which are. themselves of considerable interest. Thefour museums of Salford are HO exception. The Salford City Museum and Art Gallery beganas the country's first free public library in lune 1849 in a large brick house known as LarkHilI. The first purpose-built wing was constructed in in 1852 to designs by Travis andMagnall of Manchester who in 1857 provided a parallel north wing. A west wing, funds farwhich were given by E.R. Langworthy, was built in 1878 and an east wing replaced thehouse in 1936. All three new wings are in red brick, closely matching the first. In contrasta lift tower to the east wing is in a much redder red brick. This was built c. 1992.

On the opposite side of The Crescent is the Viewpoint Gallery, used for photographicexhibitions, a fitting use for the engine sheds of the Central Fire Station of 1902. This is redbrick with much orange-brown terracotta around the former doorways. Ordsall Hall is afifteenth-century timber-framed house complete with cruck blades and spere truss. The southfront is an 1899 refurbishment in red brick in header bond with red terracotta used for thedetails of the fenestration. The architect of th~ 1899 work was Alfred Darbyshire.

The Lancashire Mining Museum occupies Buile HilI, a house built in 1825-27 for SirCharles Potter (1774-1845) and designed by Sir Charles Barry; a contemporary building ofhis is the Royal Institution, Manchester, now the Manchester City Art Gallery, designed in1824. Both use a classical vocabulary. But whereas in the city centre ashlar is used for theexterior of the Royal lnstitution, in the private park brick covered with stucco is employed.Barry's house for Sir Thomas was of two storeys, with a cellar. On the south side there wasa sunken garden: see the photograph of c.1865 which is reproduced as plate 2 of G. Preece,Salford Museum 0/Mining. The house is there shown as it was before Edward Walters addeda third storey to the' main body of the house, a porte-cochere to the entrance on the northfront, and a ballroom at the north-west corner. His client was Thomas Bailey Potter (1817-1898), the youngest son of Sir Thomas. The additions to Buile Hill are a decade later thanWalters' best-known building, the Free Trade Hall, Manchester.

Sir Thomas Potter became the first Mayar of Manchester in 1838 at a time whenresidence in the town was not a requirement of the man who held the temporary office of itsfirst citizen; business interests sufficed. Potter was later prominent in the Anti-Corn LawLeague. Earlier in his career, the leading textile merchant of the adjacent city, he had beenamong those who financed the launch of The Manchester Guardian. His eldest son, Sir lohnPotter (1815-1858), who lived in the house for ten years from 1845, was Mayor ofManchester 1848-51 and was knighted when Queen Victoria came to Salfard and Manchesterin 1851.

The third member of the Potter family to occupy the house was T.B. Potter who wasM.P. far Rochdale for thirty years from 1865. In 1877, he sold the house to lohil MarsWandBennett (1817-1889), a timber amd stone merchant of Ardwick and Mayor of Manchester1863-65. His widow lived there for more than a decade after his death but in 1902 the housewas sold to the County Borough of Salford. The grounds, covering 80 acres, became a publicpark, part of Salford's green lung.

The house opened as a natural history museum in 1906. but in 1959 an exhibit arrangedas a coal pit was built in the cellar. In the early 1970s, the ground floar of the house was

5

coverted inta an exhibit showing a drift mine and pit yard of the 1930s.The first floor is reached by a rather fine Victorian staircase with wrought iron railings

and banister. In the late 1970s, the first floor was re-organised to display the history ,technology, and social relations of the coal industry in the County Palatine. Brick and itsassociations with the coalfield is a recurrent theme in the exhibits of the hsitory and socialrelations of Lancashire coalmining ..The sequence of exhibits begins with a geological explanation of the formation of coal,

of how 40 metres of peat deposits through compression become a two-metre seam of coal,and how the forces which shape the Earth distort the seams. Within this exhibit is aphotograph taken in May 1890 of Bent Mine, at Oldham Edge, being .quarried for brickearth. The resultant bricks, if not used by.the mining company itself, would have found aready market in mill construction or house building in the towh. Brick earth as a rawmaterial and coal as a fuel gave the collieries a dual resource for brickmaking. Bricks aremuch used in collieries. . .

As early as 1780, when the horse gin ofRothwell Haigh Colliery, near Wakefield, YorksW .R., was first used, the mine shaft was brick-lined. The bricks are wedge-shaped; the topof such a shaft is symbollically laid out in the reconstructed gin, which was last used in1920. Adjacent is an enlargement of the engraving of the horse gin at Broseley Pit, made c.1788. On the engraving is a brick chimney and a small brick building.

Earlier in the eighteenth century, also in Shropshire, the furnaces of Abraham Darby atCoalbrookdale where coke was first used in 1709 were, of course, built of brick. TheLancashire Mining Museum has a photograph of these. It is worth walking across the cityta Salford Art Gallery to view 'Workmen and Workwomen' by Philip Homan Mill, of c.1870which depicts the interior of a salt works, which has brick flooring and brick fronts to thefurnaces, showing many repairs.

Coal was the motive for the Duke of Bridgewater to invest in building a canal fromWorsley to Manchester in 1759: the famous Bridgewater Canal. The canal was brick-lined.The duke's canal even had underground tunnels going right into the mines; these too werebrick-lined. Also built to facilitate the transport of coal into Manchester was the Manchester,Bolton and Bury Canal of 1792, which appears stone-lined but has a brick inner skin to thefine stonework, wh ich can be seen in the disused canal beside the railway going north fromSalford Crescent Station to Bolton. Another painting in the City of Salford Art Gallery, apanorama of 'Manchester and Salford in 1859' by lohn Raphael Isaac, shows the canaI andthe canal basin on Upper Wharf Street behind the fine c. 1810 brick houses'ofThe Crescent.

The manufacture of bricks by collieries is represented in the Lancashire Mining Museumby a collection of bricks. Seventeen are displayed with different names in the frog andshowing quite different textures.

Bricks were used in pit shafts, as noted, and also in the buildings at the pit head. Mineowners built small settlements to house their .workers. Two, west of Salford, are analysedin detail in museum exhibits. Gin Pit and New Manchester are both at Tyldesley. The former.:'las owned by the Astley and Tyldesley Coal and Salt Company and the lauer by the Dukeof Bridgewater's Estates. Gin Pit dates to the 1860s and 1870s, with houses ofthe1870s and1890s. The houses at New Manchester were rebuilt by the Bridgewater Estates in the 1890s.Both communities, comprised initially of miners from outside La~cashire, are distant fromthe village of Tyldesley. The village had cotton mills to add to .its economic base.

While houses and mine buildings were of carboniferous brick, the miners' institutionscould commission prestige structures. The headquarters of the Lancashire and CheshireMiners' Federation at Bolton is one such. It is in red brick, Ruabon rather than Accringtorl.Following a competition restricted to architects connected with Bolton, it was designed by

6

AJ. Hope of Bradshaw Gass and Hope in 1912 and a wash drawing was exhibited at theRoyal Academy in the following year. 'Members who came to the society's first NorthernSpring Meeting at Bolton in 1994 saw this: the building is now used as the premises of theBolton and Bury Chamber of Commerce. Another prestige project commissioned by theLancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation from the same firm of architects is the Miners'Convalescent Horne, Blackpool, opened in 1926. Also in red brick, this really is a very finebuilding on Blaekpool seafront, somewhat north of where the lights end.

Reeently seeured from possible demolition is the Miners' Reseue Station, Boothstown,opened in 1933, where two fuIl-time resue teams were kept on stand-by for those disastersone hopes will never happen. There is a simple headstone beyond the east end of StAugustine's, Pendlebury. Th~ Clifton Hall disa.ster of 18 June 1885 cIaimed 178 lives. LikeL.S. Lowry's painting of 1919, 'The Pit Disaster' , in Salford Art Gallery, it is a salutoryreminder that power for hornes and industry has sometimes been won at the cost of humanlives.

Like most museums, the Lancashire Mining Museum incIudes a gallery devoted totemporary exhibitions. These are staged. in the former ballroom of the house. BetweenOctober 1994 and January 1995, the exhibit' Openeast recovers the Past' showed photographsand remains fropm the cleaning up of eighteenth-eentury mining operations at St Helens.These were dicovered as a bonus in the clear up of deposits of cyanide, arsenical compounds,hydrogen suphide, and eopper sulphate dumped above abandoned mines.

More than one brick shaft was found and recorded by the site engineer, Frank Lobe I.These shafts were a single brick thick with the brieks laid directly against the surroundingstrata. There were no backing structures. About every 10 feet (3 metres) was an oak curbingring. These rings of four to six sections were used to keep the briekwork on a foundation.A complete one was exhibited and is retained for the collections of the Lancashire MiningMuseum. It is thought to date .to c. 1740. It supported a shaft of about 6 feet (1.8 metres)diameter. When seen in section in colour photographs of the shafts, the whole looks almostsurreal in its suspended state: the seams of eoal were not lined.

The Lancashire Mining Museum is open weekdays from 10.00 to 16.30 but is closedbetween 12.30 and 13.30. It is also open Sunday afternoons, 14.00 to 17.00, but is closedon Saturdays. If members wish to view the exhibits on the first floar, it is worth checkingin advance that these are open as when the museum is short-staffed these galleries are eIosedto visitors. The telephone number is 0161-736-1832.

FUl1her In/onnation

N. Dennis, F. Henriques, C. Slaughter, eoal is Our Life An analysis 0/ a Yorkshire miningcommunity, London: Tavistoek Publications, 2nd edition, 1969; 1st ed. London: EyreandSpottiswoode, 1956.G. Preece, Coalmining a handbook to the History 0/ Coalmining Gallery, Salford Museum0/ Mining, Salfard: City of Salford Cultural Services, 1981., This has a select bibliography.G. Preece, Salford Museum 0/ Mining, Salford: City of Salford Cultural Services, 1978.

7

BRICKl\1AKING TERNISA list of Soure es

Roger KenneIl

lNTRODUCTION

I was most interested in Mr Crute's item on 'Brickmaking Terms: a collated list mostly fromsouth-east England' which appeared in BBS In/onnation, 72, October 1997, and wish to offersome additional terms. These are given in the Appendix below.

My other purpose is to provide a list of potential sourees. A source of brickmaking termsis from former books relating to brickwork and building construction. An initial listing ofsuch books is given below together with notes on each.

Members may wish 10 record further examples to provide a resource of such information.

BRICKWORK: SOME BOOKS AND CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Prof. Henry Adams, Building Construction, c. 1920s,(London: The Waverley Book Company, nld).NOles: Cassell's Building Construction. Brickwork is weil represented in a book with 2,300 engravings and 590pages. Includes a chapter on 'Bricks and Brickmaking'.[First or earlier edition, 1906; see BBS lnfonnation, 74, lune 1998, 13 notes 32 and 34, the lalter with notes on theauthor. DHK]

lohn Parnall Allen, Practical Building Construction, 1924,(London: British Books, Ludgate Hill).Noles: Sixth edition, 1924. The first chapter is titled 'Bricks and Their Composition'.

lohn Black (Editor), Bricklaying, c. 1900.(London: lohn Dicks, 313 The Strand, nld)NOles: Believed 10 be turn of this century. i.e. c.19001191O.Carpenter & Builder Technical Series No. I, costing 6d. A sinall linen covered booklet, the first chapter is goodfor descriptions of c1asses, and kinds of bricks. The preface states: 'The selection of Bricklaying as a subject for thefirst in aseries of practical handbooks will be admitted to be a fitting one. Very liltle information in a collected formexists bearing upon this ancient craft'. The line illustrations are rather poor.

S.c. Brees, Illustrated Glossary 0/ Practical Architecture & Civil Engineering, 1853,(London: L.A. Lewis, Fleet Street).NOles: BrickI~aking included.

Martin S. Briggs, A Short History 0/ the Building Crafts, 1925,(Oxford: Clarendon Press).Notes: One chapter is devoted to brickwork, and has some useful early reference to the use of brick.

R. Scott Burn, Building Construction, 1876,(London: William Collins, Sons & Co.).Notes: Sub-titled 'Showing the Employment of Brickwork and Masonry in the Practical Construction of Buildings'.ContaiJls only a small section of brick materials.

Ausün T. Byrne, Inspection 0/ the Materials and Workmanship Employed in Construction,

8

1916,(Boston MA: John Wiley & Sons).Notes: First published in 1892. Contains a section tilled 'Artificial Stones - Brick'. Initially written for use in NorthAmerica.

T. Corlchill (Editor), Brickwork,(London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1945),Notes: This is volume I of Brickwork, Concrete and Masonry. This book was specially published for use by H.M.Forces and was not for re-sale. Section 1 by R.V. Broughton on 'Materials - Brickwork' is very good for varieties,.c1ays, preparation, and the brickmaking process: Weil illustrated.

W. Frost, The Modern Bricklayer, 1930s,(London: Caxton, n/d).Notes: In three volumes'. Chapter one is titled 'Bricks and Their Varieties'. A well-known pre-war publication forapprentice bricklayers. '

Richard Greenhalgh, Modern Building Construction,(London: New Era, n/d).Notes: In three volumes. Illustrated section on bricks and mortar.

Richard Greenhalgh (Editor), Building Educator, 1927,(London: Sir Isaac Pitman).Notes: In three volumes. Contains brickmaking in the first volume.

Adam Hammond, Brick-cutting and Setting, 1903,(London: Crosby, Lockwood and Sons, Ludgate Hill).Notes: Fourth edition of Weale '5 Scientific and Technical series. Contains abrief reference to the quality of bricksfor rubbed and gauged brickwork. A companion volume is Brick and TUe Making, by E. Dobson, which cost 6shillings.

Thomas Kelly (publisher), Builders Director, 1823,(London: Thomas Kelly, Paternoster Row).Notes: There is reference 10 brick types within the chapter on 'Bricklaying'. A further chapter lists an explanationof terms and 10015used for bricklaying and plastering. Has a page of engravings of tools.

R.H. Lipscombe, Hints to Young Land Agents, 1891,(London: Land Agests' Record Office, 73 Fleet Street.Notes: Contains a short chapter on 'Tileries and Brickyards'. A most interesting observation on the value of abrickyard anf its operation on an estate. The chapter concludes, thus: "I have never had the luck to discover a goldmine for my chiefs. The nearest approach to one was a bed of day, which had been lying untapped dose to agrowing town, and from a five acre marsh let at eleven pounds a year 1 extracted one thousand eight hundred poundroyalty, which, in thai case, was 35. 9d. per tousand bricks":

C.F. MitchelI, Building Construction, 1903,(London: B.T. Batsford)Notes: Standard work with many reprints developing illlO aseries from the original book. It was still issued as asingle volume as recently as 1960.[For details on the author see BBS Infonnation, 74, lune 1998, 13 note 33, DHK]

Harry Bryant Newbold, revised by Edgar Lucas, Modern Practical Construction, '1954;(London: Caxton).Notes: First published in 1934 and in four volumes. Volume 2, chapter 1 is 'Bricks and Brickwork', and has a gooddescription, and a table of brick types. Good illustrations of purpose-made bricks.[First edition had the tit1e,House and Cottage Construction; Volume Il, chapter 3 is 'Bricks and Brickwork' with

9

chapter 4 devoted to 'Ornamental and Gauged Brickwork'. A set of the first edition was seen in a bookshop inChipping Campden in March 1998 for £50-00. Newbold was sometime editor of 71ze National Builder. DHK]

G. Gordon Samson, Every Man His Own Builder, 1920,(London: Crosby, Lockwoo.d and Son).Notes: Originally written for a foreign market but adapted for use in Great Britain. This is a third revised edition.Overprinted in red are notes relating to pre-war (WW I) prices used and that, 'Since 1914 prices have continuallyflucruated, but in general the tendency has always been, unforrunately, to increase'.Chapter IX, 'How to Make Bricks', is unexpectedly good and iIlustrated description on traditional brickmaking andclamp burning methods.

Alfred B. Searle, Modern Brickmaking, 1931,(London: Ernest Benn Ltd.).Notes: Third edition, revised and enlarged, 1931. First published 1911. With 372 illustrations. 500 pages andincludes illustrated advertisments for brickmaking machinery.

Alfred B. Searle, The Clayworkers Hand-Book, 1953,(London: Charles Griffin & CO).Notes: This is the fifth edition, second impression of a book first pulished in 1906. This book of 360 pages containsand interesting appendix of facts ansd tables. This appendix also contains a usefullist of standard books and journalsdealing with clayworking. Included in this extensive list is the title Sixty Years a Brickmaker by J.W. Crary, n/d andpublished in Berlin.

Robert Stuart, A Dictionary of Architecture, mid 19th century,(London: Jones & Co., Finsbury Square, nld).Notes: Seems to be' mid 19th cenrury. In three volumes and contains some interesting facts on brick and thebricklayer.

F. Walker, Brickwork, A Practical Manual, 1935,(London: The Technical Press, Ludgate HilI).Notes: A small book in its tenth edition. Contains a small section on bricks and the characteristics of good bricks.

No Author, Notes on Building Construction, 1879,(London: Rivingtons).Notes: In three volumes. The books are arranged to meet the syllabus of the Science and Art Department of theCommittee of Council on Education, South Kensington.Pan Three is 'Mate.rials' and contains sections of brickearths, brickmaking, and brick burning.

No Author, Where to Buy Everything for Building Construction and Decoration, 1927,(London: S. Davis & Co., 1927 edition).Notes: Extensive lists of major brick manufacrurers, together with addresses and telephone numbers. The list isdivided into brick types: i.e. facings, hollow, flettons, glazed, pavors, etc.

APPENDIX:SOME ADDITIONAL BRICKMAKING TERMS

Banana Bricks Bricklayers' term for brick slightly concave or convex in its length. Thisterm is of post World War II origin.BrindLed Stripped effect on surface caused during firing when there 'are gaps betweenadjacent bricks, and to those which are touching. Alternative term far Kiss Marks.

10

Chuffs Additionally used to describe bricks frdm a clamp recently opened, and on lO

which rain has fallen causing rapid cooling and thus producing cracks in exposed bricks.(see BBS Inf 72, Oct 1997,9, under 'Shuff' for definition as unsound brick of low strength).

Keil Suffolk dialect term for a brick kiln. The writer heard this term used recentlyby an elderly resident when describing the former site of the Hadleigh, Suffolk, brickworks.

Grizzle An underburnt brick, usually from the exterior area of the kiln or clamp.Other terms for this type of brick are Plaee or Samuels: the latter word can also be spelt asSammels, Sameis or Salmons. This last variation of the term reflects the light pink colourof these under burnt bricks,

.Gaults White bricks made from clay with sufficent chalk to flux the mass. They. appear with a pink tinge when the bruning is defective.

Soaps An alternative name for a Queen Closer. This term might apply to a brickmoulded to the size of a brick divided down its length.

Suffolk Whites A clay similar to Gault clay, with a large proportion of sand, and producinga brick which will cut weIl, and then hardens in the course of time.

NEWS FROM MEMBERS

VALUE ENGINEERING IN TUDOR CHIMNEY STACKS

I have admired Tudor chimney stacks for many years but only an illustration to an article inChanered Surveyor Magazine, March 1998, allowed me to examine them more cIosely. Thearticle, 'How to ensure conservation through good maintenance' by Nigel Dann and DerekWorthing, contrasts the attitude to conservation in the Netherlands with that pursued byEnglish Heritage, iiIustrated by a photograph of the roof and chimney stacks of HamptonCourt Palace; not stated is whether these are original or restor~tiön copies. Presumably theyare built of "rubbers". A particular point is that the shafts appear, although of quite diversedesigns, to be constructed from only four patterns of bricks. The same economy is visiblein the plinths and cappings. "Value Engineering" is obviously not such a modem techniqueas some would wish us to think.lOHN CONST ABLE

A DORKING DRA GON

Following the review of 'Dragons in Surrey', in BBS Information 73, I was surprised to findan absence of dragons in Dorking, where my wife grew up. She told me there is a dragonon the building which we identified as no 53 South Street (TQ 164491). The premises arecurrently occupied by Screen Video Rentals.IAN CARUANA

11

BOOK REVIEW

Br,ick in Essex. frorn the Roman Conquest to the RefonnationBy Pat RyanChelmsford, Essex: Pat Ryan, 1996, ISBN 0 9529039 0 3vi + 160 pages. 24 plates, 7 figures, 8 maps.Price £15-00 (paperback); pos tage extraAvailable from Mrs P. Ryan, Danbury, Chelmsford, Essex CM3 4QL

Essex is a surprisingly large county. From the environs of east London to the Stour estuaryis more than half the two-hour. train jou!11ey from London to Norwich: the Great EasternRailway built its track beside the road the Romans created for the same route. The rail orthe road is all that most people see of the county; they do not explore its crannies fromAudl~y End in the north-west to Southend-on-Sea in the south~east of the eighth largestcounty in England.

Our member, Mrs Pat Ryan has done just that: her first two maps show the evidence byparish for.Roman brick and tile and the re-use in medieval churches of Roman brick and thedata for no evidence shows the meticulousness and depth of her survey.

One strength of the book lies in the marshalling of the evidence for the use of brick. Asecond is how that evidence is presented: appendices and maps supplement a generous text.A third is the splendid colour photographs which bring out brick colour and in some caseseven the brick texture leaps out.

The chapters cover both ecclesiastical and secular uses of the material. The book'sconsideration of brick in Essex churches was reviewed in BBS Information, 71, lune 1997,and comments offered there bear repetition.

As in adjacent Suffolk, brick is a major building material for churches in medieval Essex.It can be re-used Roman brick and tile; the details of use as quoins, dressings and walling,based on a survey of 391 churches are given in Appendix 2. Of these, 107 are rendered orotherwise not possible to survey and 49 have no Roman brick in the fabric. In Essex, 234churches include re-used Roman brick in their fabric. Splendid colour photographs illustratevarious churches with Roman brick in Colchester but the county has many isolated churcheswith re-used Roman brick. -

The best-known medieval brickwork in Essex is Coggeshall Abbey. The church was builtbetween 1141 and 1167, with the outside chapel, the capella-ex.tra-portas, built in about1223. The brick is geologically distinctive and individual bricks were often made as'specials': a figure illustrates twenty-three known shapes. At the abbey, domestic buildings,also of brick, date to about 1190 and later. Coggeshall bricks also occur in churches withina twelve-mile radius of the abbey: sales provided income.

Also ecclesiastical in origin are Waltham Abbey great bricks, distinct in both texture andstyle, and often in size, from those originating at Coggeshall. The earliest date for these is1177 but others could be a quarter of century later. Bricks have been found, possibly re-used,in the Abbey Gateway of 1369.

An interesting question involves finding linkages, if any, between the twelfth- and early-thirteenth-century uses and the better known late medieval brick in cqurches. Some clues forthis are given but these appear as isolated examples rather than a continuous development.

Accompanying chapters six and eight, on 'Brick Buildings of the Fifteenth Century' and-'Brick in the Early Tudor Period ' , Appendix 4 provides a valuable summary of the evidencefor 'Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-century Brick in Essex Churches'. Many of these arewell-known buildings: complete churches at East Horndon, Chignal Smealey and Layer

12

Marney are inch..ided among the colour plates as are the towers at Gestingthorpe, TheydonGarnon and Tilbury-juxta-Clare. East. Horndon church was begun in 1442 and workcontinued to Sir.Thomas Tyrell's death in 1476. The others of these buildings have datessimilar to the 1492 to 1520 of the bequests for the flint-faced brick tower of Dedham churchso familiar to us from Constable's paintings.

Many years ago, this reviewer surveyed the woodwork donated to Norfolk churches after1450. Almost all of this was given in the reign of Henry VII and very little after his son'saccession in 1509. In Suffol~ churches, there is the ~mpression of little being done, preciselybecause little needed to be done, in the 1520s and later.

A whole series of interesting questions are raised. Does the Kuznets cycle of building.peaks and troughs apply to medieval churches? It does to contemporary brick houses. Oneof the secular troughs follows the great land grab of the Reformation: this may be as muchto do with twenty-years profits being the usual purehase price for a major estate and themoney not be'ing available for building, save in exceptional circumstances.

As Pat Ryan points out for the churches the documentation is we.ak. It is fromcontemporary written records that dates are usually available. An otherwise undated chapelwith a dated memorial nearly always predates the death of the donor: it is known heirs donot always continue with an ambitious building scheme. The brick church at Shelton,Norfolk, is an obvious example of a building finished less lavishly after the donor's demise.

Essex is next to Suffolk and forty miles south of Norfolk. Are there variations in thepattern of brick in churches in the three easter~ counties? Are there personal, even family,links between tbose who give for a brick church in these counties? Are these links confinedto the sixteenth century? This is so with Marney of Essex and Shelton and Bedingfield ofNorfolk.

King Henry VIII died in 1547. And here, I think, is where a possible methodologicaldifficulty with the boo~ is to be found. Taking her cue from the cessation of church buildingat the Reformation, and like Jane Wight in Brick Building in Englandfrom the Middle Agesto 1550, Pat Ryan stops before the reign of Elizabeth I.

From a secular viewpoint, is this a good place to break off? As noted above, the evidencesuggests an overall lull in secular building from the late 1530s until the 1570s. The politicsof instability playapart in the length of the downturn in the building cycle. But theElizabethan diplomat, Sir Thomas Smith, was building Hill Hall at Theydon Mount, Essex,between i557 and 1575. 'Oile question this reviewer would like to explore is how were highquality brickmaking and bricklaying skills kept going between say 1539 and say RobertLyminge's work at Hatfield, Blickling and Felbrigg in the 1610s and 1620s?

So much of the physical evidence is lost or overlain by later work but as Hill Hall andNew Hall, Boreham, show in Essex as in other counties where brick is often the first choiceof building material for a great house, through' four or even five overlapping generations theskills were kept alive.

This is just as they had been in the century and a half of secular work which Brick inEssex does cover, sc. 1400-1550. In this period two major tax surveys exist which deserveto be better known by building historians. Pat Ryan has made judicious use of the 1436income tax, first studied by H.L. Gray in a long paper in The English Historicul Review in1934. As she comments, lucidly in Chapter 7 on 'Fifteenth Century Brick Builders in Essex',the four richest non-peers in the county all built in brick. They have family relationships w'ithone another and all have some form of court connection.

The other great tax survey was the series of loans, subsidies and benevolences whichHenry VIII extracted from his subjects to pay for his adventures in France in the 1.520s andagain in 1545. Unfortunately the rats have eaten most of the documents that were sent to the

13

exchequer and all that survives from this "new Doomsday" is a few copies kept in privatehands. For Essex, I know of no surviving subsidy rolls such as has been printed for Suffolk,for 1523-24, or exists in manuscript for the three north Bedfordshire hundreds in 1545.

The possible comparison of one of these documents, if such exists, with brick buildingsin Essex repay study: in a preliminary form such was attempted for the Anticipation of 1522for Norfolk in BBS Infonnation 32. This suggests that early in Henry VIII's reign, it was stillonly the very richest men who could afford to build in brick, but forty miles north of Essexthe physical evidence and the Hearth Tax both point to a far less exclusive range of buildersin brick the end of the sixteenth century.

In h~r final sentence, Pat Ryan implies a different form of exclusivity in Essex: after thedissolution of the monasteries, "the period of great country house building beg an and brickbecame the only possible material for a courtier or even a member of the county gentry tobuild with in Essex". Perhaps this reviewer has read too much ioto differences betweenEnglish counties.

These differences do need exploring. For one county important to the study of brick, MrsRyan has produced a splendid study, which has raised in this reviewer' s mind a whole hostof questions. As such, the book has gone beyond its brief to survey the brickwork of Essexbetween the Roman Conquest and the Reformation.DA VID H. KENNETT

BRICK IN PRINT

In the first half of 1998, the Editor and the Chairman of the British Brick Society eachreceived notice of a number of recent publications with items of interest to members of thesociety. Se.veral are in journals not usually seen by members. The articles are given in authororder.

It is hoped to make this survey of articles and reports a regular feature of BBSInformation. Members involved in publication and members who come across articles shouldsend brief summaries to the Editor.David H. Kennel!

1. Ian M. Betts, 'Glazed Eleventh-Century Wall Tiles from London', Medieval Ceramies,20, 1996, 19-24.With his usual careful approach, Ian Betts examines a small group of eleventh-century walltiles, some still in siru at Westminster Abbey, others from excavations in the City of London.Fabric types are described and manufacturing techniques discussed. The tiles fall into twogroups and most are covered with a brown lead glaze, sometimes tending to a greenish-brown, sometimes almost black. they were used, diagonally-set, as internal wall facings.They were associated with important ecclesiastical sites. The author considers the tiles inrelation to other late Saxon and Norman ceramic building materials and emphasises that theuse of glazed wall tiles appears to have been a short-lived fashion. The paper includes a mapof locations, drawings of some of the tiles, and a colour photograph of the in situ examplesin Cheneygates, Westminster Abbey.TPS

2. A. Corder-Birch, 'Brickmaking in Essex', with six photographs of old Essex brickworks,in K. Neale, editor, Essex - 'Juli of profitable thinges', a set of twenty-six essays presentedto Co!. Sir lohn Ruggles-Brise, and published by the Essex Archaeological and HistoricalCongress, September 1996, in tribute to his life of service to the people and County of

14

Essex. References to other Essex brick buildings include many to Spains Hall, Finchingfield,the horne of the recipient. This is a red brick hause of the early Tudor period. Copies areavailable from H. Martin Stutchfield, Lowe HilI Hause, Stratford St Mary, Suffalk; thehardback volurne with 465 pp. is priced at £14-50, plus £4-00 postige.Adrian Corder-Bireh

3. John Drewett, 'No Brick Unturned', .The Lady, 14-20 April 1998, 71.This single page article (in a periodical, I da not usually take) gives a fascinating account ofthe large brick collection of our Publications Officer and Bibliographer, Arm Los, illustratedwith a photograph of the smiling Arm. The article quite rightly emphasises Arm's scholarlywork in connection with her bricks.TPS

4. Robert Field, Geometrie Patterns frorn Ti/es and Briekwork,Diss, Norfolk: Tarquin Publications, 64 pp., with copious illustrations, price £2-95.A useful guide, mainly confined to southern England.DHK

5. A. Flint, 'The Marston Hill Brick and Tile Company, Priors Marston' , in Retort! Issue7, Summer 1997.This Warwickshire brickyard was in use e .1874 to e .1895 and again 1939-41 and 1945 to1970. Nothing now remains of the works. The article records manufacturing techniques,kilns, and products which included bricks for use in fireplace surrounds; it includesphotographs of the works in 1953. Post-1945 buildings using these bricks include the Churchof the Holy Name, Bow, London, and a 1960 church in Newbury, Berks. Retort! is theBulletin of the Warwickshire Industrial Archaeology Society; details are available fromMartin Green, Argyll, 2(B) Union Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 5LT.DHK

6. C. Higgins, 'Tile Gurus', Guardian Weekend, 13 June 1998.In 1904, Halsey Ricardo designed a veritable riot of colour in brick and, more especially,in tile for the millionaire store owner Sir Ernest Debenham. Splendid photographs illustratethis account of no 8 Addison Road, Kensington, now Peacock House, the horne of theRichmond Fellowship. It includes blue/grey bricks, Doulton Carrara ware, and green-glazedand turquoise-glazed Burmantofts bricks, all in a heavy Rundbogen style, roofed with greenSpanish tiles. The house is not open to the public but is easily viewed from the street.DHK/TPS

7. David H. Kennett, 'Twenty-five years of the British Brick Society' in Clay TeehnologyNumber 59, MaylJune 1998.David Kermett has done the society proud in his review of its twenty-five years of existence.He beg ins with a consideration of the nature of the society and its members' varie~ interestsand then gives an account of the society's beginnings. The original objects of the society areset out, and some space is given to the society's various meetings over the years. Tbe growthof and changes in its publication, BBS Information, .are also described. For those of uspresent at the beginning the article. is engagingly nostalgic; for newer members it offers afascinating account of the origins and resilience of the society of whose future none couldbe assured in the early days.TPS

1S

8. T.P. Smith, 'Hiort Patent Chimney Bricks from Lambeth, London', in Trans. Londonand Middlesex Archaeological Society, 47, 1996, 187-192.Post-excavation work by the Museum of London Archaeology Service on material fromCoronation Buildings, South Lambeth Road SEIl brought to light a rare complete exampleof this type of brick considered by Maurice Exwood in BBS Infonnation, 34, November1984, and by T.P. Smith in BBS Infonnation, 38, February 1986, by T.P. Smith. There wasalso a fragment of a second similar brick. These bricks have a distinctive and unusual shape;they were manufactured according to a patent for chimney f1ues taken out in 1825 by J.W.Hiort. Flue bricks, by their very nature, are not normally visible in standing buildings; norare they a common find on archaeological excavations. These examples add to the knowledgeof their use and manufacture which is relevant to the social his tory of nineteenth-centuryLondon.TPS/DHK

7. Anon., 'Mother of the chapel', Hornes and Antiques, June 1998.The WattsChapel, Compton, Surrey, celebrates its centenary in 1998; a brief piece recordsMary Watts' work as a porter and an artist and includes a good colour photograph of theexterior brickwork of the remarkable chapel, best known for its interior of terracotta.

Other publications have carried items on the chapel: for example,. a brief note TheGuardian, 22 August 1998, Travel secticn, page 19.DHK

Meeting the Brick Challenge

During the early months of 1998, the British Brick Society has held a Spring Meeting atWilliamson CliffBrickworks, near Stamford, and Aslackby Manor, Lincolnshire, on 16 May1998 of which reports appear here, followed the Annual General Meeting in Cambridge on13 lune 1998 with abrief tour of colleges in the north of the city and a Summer Meeting inEssex on Saturday 12 June 1998. Reports of the two last.-named will follow in BBSInformation 76, February 1999.

WILLIAMSON CLIFF BRICKWORKS

Brickmakers Williamson Cliff, known to some members for their buff bricks sympatheticallyused next to the stone of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, have a small but intriguing worksat Little Casterton, near Stamford, Lincs.lohn Taylor, in charge of the production of facingbricks, welcomed some thirty members and guests gathered on a beautiful Saturday morning,eager to learn more about this fascinating brickworks: they were not to be disappointed.

First, lohn Taylor introduced us to 'Sooty'; never mind that this reporter never learnedwhy ,Sooty', know that hehad all the enthusiasm we have come to expect [rom skilIed andknowledgeable brickrnakers. New for many of us was that our guide made refractory bricksand blocks for use in furnaces where the high temperatures required high strength, lowthermal conductivity and a low coefficient of expansion. The vast majority are made for themajor brickmaker, Hanson Brick, to line their kilns.

16

We learned that the increasing demand for refractories more resistant to highertemperatures than those made from British fireclays has led to the import of bauxiteaggregates from such pIaces as Guyana in South America and China. Bauxite fram China,we were ruefuIly told, is so hard that it quickly wears the grinding machinery.

Although for many years local clays were used, much use is now made of recycledrefractory materials brought in from outside.In addition some fireclays are brought in fromother parts of Britain, including Sr AusteIl, Comwall.

We saw large blocks individuaIly moulded at the rate of 60 to 80 an hour in steel moulds,often made 'in house', and casting up to £SooO each. The 300 mm blocks normaIly shrinksome 3 mm or by one per cent. By way of contrast we saw delicate industrial electricalelement holders in PIaster of Paris moulds.

On to the facing bricks guided by lohn Taylor where some of us were amazed to learnthar hand-thrown bricks da not necessarily have the crease marks wh ich give rise to the'smile' on the face of bricks in the wall. This was said to be because in order to help releasethe c1ay the steel moulds were oiled after every five bricks instead of the more usual sandingbefore every use. Again ir was reassuring to see so many bricks of special shapes and sizes,for it is their judicious use that leads to the refinement and enrichment of brickwork.

Some adventurous members took advantage of lohn Taylor's invitation and expert tuitionto literally try their hands at throwing prepared clay c10ts into a mould. It prompted onemember to recall another brickmaker's account of his surprise at the excellent quality ofbricks produced by a young lady at her first attempt. He believes she handled the c1aysympathetically as she had leamed when kneading dough when making her own bread. Thiswas sadly in contrast to one of Williamson Cliff's young men trainees who despite trying formay weeks never developed the knack. .

The under cover visit aptly ended with viewing the dryers and the kiln which fired someSO,OOO bricks over three to four days at a maximum temperature of 13S00C.

For a compere change, lohn Taylor led us to the quarry where the raw material lay. Aswe scrambled along ankle twisting tracks of hard c1ay deeply rutted by giant rubber tyres ofclay-winning vehicles during wet weather we understood why we had been warned to bringour wellies - just in case of rain. The view of the quarry was quite remarkable: a moonlikesurface of clay terraces carved through green hills with nothing to give it scale: a giant USSRVolga dam excavator or a Dinky toy model would have been equally acceptable.

At one time six men had been employed constantly digging c1ay but now contractors areemployed for a week every two or three years to dig it in bulk to be stored near the works.

Having leamed much and with many sincere and heartfelt thanks to Williamson Cliff andespecially to lohn Taylor and 'Sooty' for giving us their time on a Saturday and sharing theirlang acquired brickmaking experience and wisdom, we headed for our next appointment insmall convoys, some even managing to pause lang enough for some local liquid refreshment.TERRY KNIGHT

THE KILNS AT WILLIAl\1S0N CLIFF BRICKWORKS, LITTLE CASTERTON

This account concentrates on the former and present kilns of Williamson Cliff brickworks.The Belgian Kiln no. 3 (fig. 1) was demolished in April 1998. It had twenty-four

chambers of 7000 brick capacity and was latterlyoil-fired to 13S00C. The fire took a monthto do a complere circuit of the kiln, one chamber each working day. It was constructed of'Whittlesea Central' Fletton bricks, from near Peterborough, and lined with WilliamsonCliff's own firebricks. The date of construction is about 19S0 but it was square-ended, very

17

Fig.l The Belgian Kiln no. 3 at Williamson Cliff briekworks, near Stamford.

similar to the twenty-two ehamber kiln at Chellaston Briekworks, near Derby, built in 1905.The Whittlesey works was founded in 1898 and taken over by the National Coal Board inthe mid 1960s. The Williamson Cliff Company was founded in 1910.

Belgian kilns were eonsidered the best for high temperature work; e.g. firebricks. Thedesign was patented in 1895 by the Dubois d'Enghien brothers of Hennuyeres, Belgium, aworks at one time (1977-80) owned by Ibstoek. The design eonsists of ehambers about 3metres (9 ft 10 in) long by 3.6 metres (11 ft 10 in) wide, with a grate set in the floor at the

18

TYP,<.AL pv.2J<.U Fr pflO< OF5TT1tvoA-1UJ grqCx:; FOFl.TkE KIL..1'J.44 6 iJCJ<'<; f'E.JL GtJV.ZS Ei £.=EPTyr1( ClJv~E. WHeR.E 6£J.<X'., I-)/UUND FUif.

C<irJ\FlV~

I'~TLbv1~S

I r \11111.

•••••\'J 11W.<l'

6l!Jv.. p.~

, / / 1- / ;' / , ,/ 1///' ';' .' , / (,

5Et.:nOtJ SJ.U> (lEf'<2~tl.l' t',LI.>J<. F(..<.CQ

1---- - -' - - --I

I UMff1l1) - 0 f'E1'J1 ~ DcOt7..,' II a llJlMA'- F'1 tSLf. 5E/l L ON FuW. II VfoJf)€1l. I

WI LLPtf"15)N W FF ~.:t!J STftMl'VlZ.D Li1X5'9li..l.P- KEAIUli 1(1:- 1\.', 5U.000 ~l!Jf'0 iJ1P~cryLP'rF1RJ/ß. 4-04}' c.yu...£ 13:>0 C

Ffi'J •ft9, Iif £J) F>-vE. 5r;rF-. ro Oi l.-.E{ t.P. Co. J,M'"",s

I\I 0 2 3r1rnz£5I 1. I I ! , 1 I I~ ...l

Fig. 2 Solid-hearth kiln at Williamson Cliff brickworks, near Stamford. Inset shows typicalfork-Iift pack of bricks for the kiln.

back end. Coal fires were fed through a firedoor formed in the wicket and had an openingat the wicket end for admitting combustion air. It also served as an off-take with a flue anddamper connected with the main flue. The length of the ehambers was limited by the heatingpower of the fires and the width by the distance a shovelful of coal could be thrown.

The other two Belgian kilns were of earlier construction and have long since gone. Theiroutput became unreliable by modern standards.

19

The Solid-hearrh kiln was constructed in 1993 to replace the unreliable Belgian kilns. Thesolid-hearth kiln (fig. 2) has a capacity equivalent to 50,000 standard bricks but in practicea mixture of bricks and assorted fireclay shapes are put in each firing, which lasts four days.Firing is with liquid petroleum gas, up to 1350oC. Thekiln measures about 16.5 m by 6.5m by 2.1 m (about 55 ft by 11 ft by 7 ft) and is lined with 25 cm (10 inches) of ceramicfibre in a steel sheet casing. The floor is of solid fireclay interlocking blocks with no flues.The off-takes are in the roof,. in rows of six, each measuring about 0.3 m by 0.1 m (12 inby 4 in), centred between the fire channels. There are eighteen burners at three levels eachside and each fire channel is fired from alternate sides of the kiln. There is an upward-opening door operated by a winch at each end and the bricks are set and drawn by fork-lifttruck in pre-formed packs. For all that the arrangement of the burners, doors and off-takesis the same as in a Scotch kiln, of which this can be regarded as a very sophisticatedexample.

The single tall circular chimney which served the Belgian kilns is still standing. It, too,is built of Fletton bricks.

Manufacture of facing bricks began in 1927. Besides supplying facing bricks for some ofthe Oxford and Cambridge colleges, the bricks were also used in some of the halls ofresidence at Nottingham University and Zetland Court flats at Westbourne, Bournemouth.Costing £490 per 1000, these are among the most expensive facing bricks in the country andthis reflects the care with which they are moulded and the high firing temperatures.Handmade roofing tiles were also made by Williamson Cliff until the 1960s and these wereused for the roof of the works' office building.MARTIN HAMMOND

ASLACKBY MANOR HOUSE, LINCOLNSHlRE

The manor house, rescued from near dereliction in 1976 by BBS member Alan Baxter,provided the venue for the afternoon of 16 May 1998. The members and friends assembledin the sunshine had anticipated something special and would not be disappointed.

We heard how the village was in the gift of Canute who passed it to his cousin, Aslack,and how the site with south-facing slope, stream at the bottom and castle nearby was thesetting of the manor far the Grimsthorpe estate of the Earls of Ancaster. The west wing oftoday's present house has the look of an eighteenth-century farmhouse but the local stonefacing hides the timber structure of a medieval hall house which originally projected furtherwest and may have been aisled. The east wing is of the mid.seventeenth century. With a trulywonderful display of moulded brick picked out in the sunlight, the Dutch-gabled south faceof this wing soon had the caineras busy. Alan imagined the treatment of this wing to reflectaperiod when people began "to !et their hair down after a decade of Puritanism". in his ownmind he was convinced that we were looking at the work of a builder with flair for designrather than that of an architecL Although exuberant brick decorations are very carefullyworked. out, the classical detailing is so idiosyncratic to say the least. In the 1970s, the joywas his to discover the brickwork in English bond hidden beneath ivy.

Our host then led us around to the east front of the east wing, where the main elevationis a rare example of bering deliberately asymmetrical.. We were witness to mostly originalwindows and a good deal of original glass, notably of the middle window of the first floor.Alan explained the effect of the Window Tax which allowed windows if less than twelveinches apart to count as one. It made for an interesting arrangement on this east front.Oxford Clay, dug from the grounds, provided the bricks for walls three bricks thick on the

20

Fig. 3 Aslackby Manor House, Lincolnshire.The mid-seventeenth-century East Wing in English Bond.(photograph: Alan Baxter)

ground floor (two and a half bricks on the upper). Bricks were apparently made on site,charred coal is in evidence; and the cIay pit is part of today's water garden.

The Grade I listed cart shed - a rare survivor of an eighteenth-century mud-and-studbuilding - drew some warranted attention before we moved back inside the house.

Inside our eyes feasted on original seventeenth-century pine panelling, pseudo-cherrygrained and with good cIassical detail, as Alan enthraled us with tales of mummified miceand chewed walnut sheIIs found behind it. Contemporary stained glass in this room displayscoats of arms, although, oddly, these have no connection with the history of the house, andit was good to see the Ancaster stone floor which had been rescued from beneath a coveringof linoleum. As we admired the oak paneIIing of a bedroom, Alan told of Grantharn racecards from 1720 found hidden behind. The idea of a musket holder next to the fireplace inan attic bcdroom appealed to our imagination.

We were invited to explore for ourselves; given the freedom of the house by a generoushast. While some cIambered among roof timbers to observe soot-blackened beams otherswere busy taking a c}oser look at those wonderfully wide tongue-and-grooved floor boardsjoined on the diagonal. Outside at least three members were discovered photographingmasonry bees at work on the warm face of the south wing. In the garden we relaxed andtook tea.

Thank you, Alan Baxter; thank you for sharing your enchanting house and for yourpatience (as same of us searched among the surplus brick-pile for examples to take hornewith use!) It was a memorable and fitting conclusion to the 1998 Spring Meeting.MARY LOCKWOOD and GILL WATTS

21

BRICK QUERIES

From time to time the British Brick Society receives enqumes and queries about bricksbrickmaking, other ceramics building materials, and brick buildings. These are printed withresponses in issues in BBS Information as space is available.

Replies are welcome.The items on sewerage sludge bricks and a response on yellow stock bricks with a raised

crown in the frog were received as the last issue of BBS Infonnation was in final stages ofpreparation. These appear in full in this issue.David H. Kennett

SEWERAGE SLUDGE BRiCKS

I have recently completed a study of the sewers and drainage of Acton 1866 to 1965. In thenineteenth century this work involved the use of 10caIly-made bricks and drainpipes.

I have a query which members may be able to answer. Has any member come across theuse of sewerage sludge in the making of bricks? Edward Monson CE, surveyor of Actonfrom 1866 to 1877, advocated its use, claiming that it would save on the cost of chalk whichlocal brickmakers had to get from some distance away. There is certainly evidence that whenan invert sewer was cleaned out every fortnight the deposit was thrown on to a local brickfield to be mixed with the dustbin rubbish already deposited there. The Sanitary Register, 6June 1879, records Monson patented bricks made from sewerage sludge; another referenceis Transactions Institution of Ovil Engineers T8V 351/16.Replies please toMrs Averil Harper Smith, 48 Penryn Road, London W3 7NA.

YEUOW STOCK BRiCKS WITH A RAISED CROWN IN THE FROG

Members may recall the query in BBS Infonnation 60, October 1993, from Mrs IreneBuchan, a member of the Waltham Abbey Historical Society, about bricks she had found inthe construction of a gun emplacement at Monkbarns, Waltham Abbey, Essex, dating to theFirst World War. Mrs Buchan was keen to know the source of these yellow stock bricks witha raised crown in the frag .

. "' ...__ . .•. . ~ _ ___1

\

. / /:;:z7\j;~i~1-.

.~-~.~

Fig. 1 Yellow stoc.k brick with a crown in the frog used in the construction of a First WorldWar gun emplacement at Monkbarns, Waltham Abbey, Essex.

When consulted in 1993, my initial view was as that of David Kennett in BBS Infonnation,60, namely bricks made to government order.

As a result of research for my forthcoming Gazetteer of Essex Brickworks, I have found

22

out that these bricks were made at the Millhead Brickworks of D. & C. Rutter at GreatWakering, Essex. These brickworks were also known as the Crown Brickworks. Ruttersmade yellow stock bricks from circa 1880 to about the time of the First World War and laterowners continued making bricks on this site until 1960.

The bricks made here by Rutters had a crown in the frog. In their earlier bricks the crownwas indented and in their later bricks it was raised. This is consistent with the bricks foundat Waltham Abbey and used in the First. World War construction.

The majority of the bricks manufaetured by Rutters were transported along the RiverThames to London by barge and some were thereafter transported to Waltham Abbey.

By strange coincidence, Monkbarns at Waltham Abbey where these bricks were foundwas the site of an old brickworks called 'Monkbarns Brick Field' of which GeorgeSymondson of Upshire Hall was initially manager and later owner.Adrian Corder-Birch .

BRICK POINTING

Does any member know of contemporary wntmgs on brickwork joints and the surfacetreatment of brick in historie buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? I amresearching Irish brick and in particular am seeking specific information on the practice of'wigging' or surface colouring of brick associated with tuck pointing. Has there ever beena chronological study of brick pointing methods?Replies please toSusan Roundtree6 Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranlagh, Dublin 6.

BEA VERTAIL-SHAPED ROOFrILES FROM BEL GIUM WITH A HERTFORDSHlRECONNECTION

I am the Curator of the Econmuseum & Archief van de Boomse Baksteen (the E.M.A.B.B.),and have recently joined the British Brick Society. The E.M.A.B.B. is an open air museumof the industrial activities of the Rupel region, near Antwerp. Gur principal industries includebrickworks, shipbuilding, the shoe industry and the diamond indmtry.

I have a query for members. I am researching an article on a beavertail-shaped rooftileproduced in the Rupel region at Niel in 1846 at the Josson-De Langle briekyard. Later therooftile was made in the Netherlands .

o3

.;.oooo3

27.50 cm,t-

Fig. 2. Beavertail-shaped roof tiles from the Rupel region of Belgium.

23

This rooftile was introdueed to Belgium by a Mr James Reed in 1843, when he had alieenee to import his tiles into the eountry. If my information is eorreet, James Reed beganhis eareer c.1840 at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, where he produced the machine-maderooftiles, using a steam engine.

The rooftile had the shape of a beavertail ("Biberschwanz" would be my description inFlemish) and is found also in Switzerland, Austria and the Bavaria region of Germany.

In addition to Reed importing his tile into Belgium from 1843 onwards, there is contactbetween the Josson-De Langle briekyard and the Architectural Tile Company in Londoneonterning this rooftile.

I am looking far assistenee. Who was James Reed? What about his company? What wasthe appearanee of his rooftile?Replies toPaul de Niel,Dorpstraat 28, B-2645, Niel, Belgium

BEA VERTAIL-SHAPED ROOFrILES IN THE NETHERLANDS

Fig. 3. Fan-shaped tiles from the Netherlands.

A patent for a tile maehine by James Reed of England has been found in the Netherlands.James Reed made the öle maehine in England; the patent in the Netherlands was granted toVietor Josson on 26 April 1851. The tiles are fan-shaped and fit flat as is shown in anenquiry in BBS Information, 27, May 1980, the illustration from which is reprodueed above.MH/DHK

24

BRICK IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: A PROPOSED REVIEW

The twentieth eentury draws to a close. A review of brick and its uses in the last hund redyears seems an appropriate project for the British Briek Soeiety to undertake.

An extended article will review briek and its uses in Britain 1895-1919 and publicationof this is expeeted in BBS Infonnation, 78, Getober 1999. Two further articles eonsider brickand its uses in Britain 1919-1939: their subjeets - 'Briek and Economie Regeneration' and'Briek and the Human Spirit' - show how the author has approaehed the period.

Aseparate group of articles will look at briek and its uses in Britain after 1945. Threearticles will eonsider briek and its uses in the Netherlands in the twentieth eentury.

These articles follow the conventions of arehitectural dictionaries and eneyclopedias suchas the Macmillan Dictionary of An to which several members of the British Briek Societycontributed.

Authors have volunteered to cover the U .S.A. prior to 1941 and Czeehoslovakia. Thesearticles are in preparation; eompletion is anticipated between 2000 and 2002.

However, the authors so far contaeted are not omniseient. In partieular their expertisedoes not extend to twentieth-eentury briekwork in Franee, G~rmany, Italy, and Spain. Thislist could be extended to include also Belgium, the Seandinavian eountries, the U.S .A. post-1945, and Japan. It is feit to be important to eover several of these named eountries.

Articles eovering eountries other than the British Isles should be designed to occupy abouteight pages of BBS Infonnation with four half-page illustrations.

Experienee in writing entries for the MacmiLlan Dictionary of An suggests that someinitial familiarity with the monuments and/or the literature with the requisite enthusiasm isall that is needed to begin an investigation. This is suffieieIit to get an author started.

If any member would like to take on the ehallenge would they please contact either theChairman or the Editor of the British Briek Society. Both will be happy to give authors thenecessary help in preparing their contributions for publication. A review of briek and its usesin a eountry in the twentieth eentury could cover just part of the century. Those who caneontribute articles on developments sinee 1973 would be partieularly welcome.TERENCE PAUL SMITHDAVID H. KENNETT

BRICKWORKS ON TELEVISION

The television programme 'Time Team' went to Stoke-on-Trent in 1998 to look for the siteof Josiah Wedgwood's first faetory. Aecording to City News, July 1998, published by theCity of Stoke-on-Trent, among the diseoveries was a briekworks and bottle kiln foundationseonfirming the site of Ivy House, the original 1761 workshop of Josiah Wedgwood. TheChannel Four programme is due to be broadeast early in 1999.

STOP PRESS:THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE, STRATFORD-UPON-A VON

As the final work on BBS Infonnation 75, Oetober 1998, was being done reports haveappeared in local and national papers of a bid to the National Lottery Arts Fund by the RoyalShakespeare Theatre Company.

The bid involves the demolition of Elizabeth Scott's theatre, a building opened on 23April 1932: the competition for whieh was held in 1926. The replacement would be designedby the Dutch architect, Erick van Egeraat.DHK

BRITISH BRICK SOCIETY IN 1998 AND 1999

Five visits and meetings in 1998 have been arranged. The remaining meeting is:

Autumn MeetingSaturday 26 September 1998Dorset Brickwork.A walk round Old Town, Poole, with an afternoon visit to sand-lime brickworks.

Full details for the Autumn Meeting were in the luly mailing with BBS Infonnation., 74 andthe minutes of the Annual General Meeting.

Preliminary details for 1999 are:

Spring MeetingSouth Buckinghamshire centred on High Wycombe, possibly including a brickworks visit anda visit to the sixteenth-century brick house at Chenies.

Northern Spring MeetingYorkshire: Leeds

Annual General MeetingSaturday 12 lune 1999Annual General Meeting at Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough, with afternoon visit toGainsborough Old Hall.

luly MeetingEssex, including either Coggeshall Abbey or Layer Marney Tower.

It is hope to arrange an Autumn Meeting at Kew Palace. An alternative venue in the westermpart of the City of London is also under consideration.

Future meetings in preparation include visits to Blackpool, Coventry, Oxford, Stafford,Stratford-upon-Avon, .Warwick, Wigan, Wolverhampton, and Worcester, with Wigan theprobable venue for the Northern Spring Meeting in 2000. A visit to rural south-eastWarwickshire is being planned, including the brick kiln of the Oxford Canal at FennyCompton.

The British Brick Society is always looking for new ideas for future meetings. Suggestionsplease to Michael Hammett, David Kennett or Terence Smith.